Contact: Dr. Charles M. Carson, Assistant Professor of Management, 205-726-4460, cmcarson@samford.edu

Executives can shape corporate culture

"One of the best ways to learn about management is to study an actual company," says Samford Business management professor, Dr. Charles M. (Chad) Carson.

Carson has taken this statement to heart in his most recent publication "PolySpec: Assessing the Corporate Culture," which appears in the most recent issue of the Journal of Applied Case Research.

PolySpec is a company in Houston, Texas that manufactures floor coatings and linings. As part of the 2005 Southwest Case Research Association Conference that was held in Dallas, Texas, Carson and his coauthors from Samford, Baylor University, and Alvin Community College were able to hear the president of the company, Buddy Ellisor, speak about the corporate culture of PolySpec. "We were able to take his comments, along with his answers to our questions about their corporate culture, and craft a case that examines how executive decision making can establish and maintain strong corporate culture," Carson stated.

Carson's work on corporate culture is not limited to case writing. He along with coauthors from University of South Alabama and Northern Illinois University examine employee (person to organization) fit in relation to a company's dominant culture and subcultures in the Winter 2006 issue of the Troy University Business and Economic Review.

Carson, who was the 2006 School of Business Faculty Award recipient for Outstanding Scholarship, plans to continue to mix case studies with more traditional business research. "I believe that talking to organizational decision makers and developing cases from those conversations makes my in-class interaction with students much richer. I can provide them with real-world examples and insights from managers on the front lines of business."